This week, Austin is Chicago South

March 16, 2007

BY JIM DeROGATIS POP
MUSIC CRITIC

South by Southwest Music organizers often note that after Texans, the single
biggest group in attendance at the massive festival hails from Chicago.

Austin and the Windy City have always had a sister-city relationship, and
SXSW is not only the year's prime opportunity for Chicago bands to be heard
by the rest of the country (and the world) but a nonstop party for fans who
just head south to enjoy the sun, the sounds and the burritos.

It often seems as if you can't walk half a block down Sixth Street,
Austin's main club drag, without bumping into, say, Matt Santos, the Chicago
singer who added the powerful choruses to Lupe Fiasco's "American Terrorist"
and who's working hard to establish his own career, or garage-rockers the
Redwalls, bloodied but unbowed after being dropped by a downsizing Capitol
Records, and looking snazzy as ever in their matching white Beatle boots.

Two of Chicago's best rock clubs held well-attended parties here,
temporarily turning a small corner of Texas into Metro (whose bash on
Wednesday was part of its 25th anniversary celebration) or Schubas (whose
11th annual party on Thursday was one of the highlights of the weekend for
many festivalgoers).